page_title: List of museums and cultural institutions in Indonesia
section_title: Colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: List of museums and cultural institutions in Indonesia / History / Colonial period
caption_attribution_description: English: The library at the museum of the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, Batavia Nederlands: Foto. De bibliotheek in het museum van het Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Batavia
context_page_description: This list includes many museums and cultural institutions in Indonesia.
  Heritage buildings such as candi, mosques, colonial churches and buildings with no site museum should not be placed in the list.
context_section_description: Before the 20th-century, there was little interest in the study of the native culture of Indonesia by the colonial government. Most anthropologic studies were done by a few non-governmental institutions and individuals. Among the non-governmental institution was the Batavian Society of Arts and Science, which established a museum for Indonesian culture and history. Individuals e.g. Sir Stamford Raffles and Dr. Snoeck Hourgrogne wrote valuable studies on native culture and history before the 20th-century.
  The first museum in Indonesia seems to have been that built by Rumphius in Ambon, built in 1662. Nothing remains of it except books written by himself, which are now in the library of the National Museum. Its successor was the Batavia Society of Art and Science, established on April 24, 1778. It built a museum and a library, played an important role in research, and collected much material on the natural history and culture of Indonesia. It later came under the direct control of the British Lieutenant-Governor Raffles who, among other things, provided it with a new office building for the museum and library administration. The museum collection and library continued to grow, and in 1862 the government built, in the center of New Batavia, what is now the National Museum, the previous building is now Wayang Museum in Jakarta Old Town. The whole collection was transferred to the Government of the Republic of Indonesia in 1962.
  The Batavia Society of Art and Science also specialized in social sciences. In 1817 it made the plans for the Hortus Botanicus Bogoriense in Bogor. In 1894 it set up the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense. The Bibliotheca Bogoriense made Bogor into an important center of biological science.
  Except for the Radya Pustaka Museum in Surakarta (1890), no other major museums were established in the 19th century. It was only in the 1930s that local museums began to appear, usually privately initiated, by civil servants and Catholic and Protestant missionaries. These museums are praiseworthy, but are not always in expert hands, and are often run by boards which do not always function continually. Some museums suffer from the lack of regular resources, and some have disappeared completely, e.g. the Karo Museum in Berastagi, North Sumatra, set up by Dr Neuman, was abolished during the Japanese occupation (1942–45); and the Banjarmasin Museum built by Dr Malinkrodt, an expert on customs and traditions in Kalimantan, was burned down.
  At the beginning of the 20th century, the colonial government became interested in the maintenance and restoration of cultural remains. In 1901 it set up the Commissie in Nederlandsch Indie voor Oudheidkundige Onderzoek van Java en Madoera, headed by Dr J. L. A. Brandes. In 1913, this became the more effective Oudheid-kundige Dienst van Nederlandsch Indie (Archaeological Service), under Professor Dr. N.J. Kromm. The government also employed officials to make a study of local languages and started the Kantoor voor Inlandsche Zaken.
  In 1918 Balai Poestaka was created to publish books of literary value in Malay and local languages. Malay was taught in schools next to the local language. Prospective civil servants were obliged to study the language and customs of the region they were to work in. Training was given in Leiden, in the Netherlands. Native Indonesians also came to realize the importance of their national culture in awakening nationalism, part of a general contemporary phenomenon in Asia. This nationalism was pioneered by Budi Utomo in 1908 in the STOVIA, whose building, the School for Javanese Doctors, is converted into a museum today.
  Modern technology and cultural change leads to disappearance of indigenous handicrafts. There was no longer a market for plait-work, textiles, earthenware, and brass, silver and gold objects. The result was a gradual process of cultural impoverishment. A need for money forced people to sell their heirlooms on the market, and many objects that should have been kept in Indonesia found their way to foreign countries. This condition prompted the building
caption: The library of the Batavia Society of Art and Science. The baroque bookcase in the picture is still kept in the Jakarta History Museum as of 2012, although under lack of standardized museum maintenance.
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